After having gone over how you can handle such an epic adventure without losing out on actual gaming time in the last article, this time I’m going to show you just what the game does to make each game unique. The random events and encounters it throws at you as well as the system that allows it to remember your decisions and modify the game as necessary.

First things first: This article contains a lot of SPOILERS from the game's “introduction” section.If you REALLY want to see how these mechanics work in the game, then read on.Otherwise I suggest you wait and experience it for yourself.

RANDOM ENCOUNTERS

These are the most common type of random element you will encounter. They are placed adjacent to Terrain cards each time one is added to the board. They help indicate the different directions you can continue to explore as well as providing a random, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes neutral encounter element to your travels.

Here we can see two examples of this type of card:

The "sprain" is an encounter that requires you to immediately (note: some event cards can be left and then resolved later but the red border round the "spot" action indicates that you MUST attempt this action immediately).

The "sharpened stone" is a random object that you can find during your meanderings. You add it to your inventory immediately and it can be used either as material to craft another item or you can fight/hunt with it.

There exist multiple random encounter decks. These do not forcibly go by difficulty but rather by location so that events are coherent with the area they take place in. For example: You’re not going to get attacked by a polar bear in a desert, you may fall fowl to quicksand however, something that wouldn’t happen in a grassy plain.

1 NUMBER, SEVERAL CARDS

Sometimes the game will ask you to draw card XXX at which point you may discover that there are multiple versions of said card. Each one presents you with a variant of the same situation and you must choose one of them at random.

Take card number 009 for example. This card is drawn when you execute the “visit” action on one of the map cards. On said card you can see a small cave drawn next to the action so you know that whatever happens, it’s going to involve some sort of grotto. What you don’t know is what may be lurking in there!

The first card shows a “good” result: the cave is empty and peaceful, you could even use it to take rest and heal your wounds.

The second card is a “bad” result: the cave is actually home to a rather aggressive colony of insects that will harass you until you leave the area or lead them away from the cave.

Of course it’s not always as simple as “good” or “bad” results. If you were to enter a cave that was shown on the map card as having giant animal tracks leading into it, then I think the results would go from “bad” to “worse”.

Also, going back to the insect example. If you were to lead them away and discard that card, the next time you executed the action that asked you to draw card 009, there would only be one card left, the empty cave. However, remember in the last article that between two game sessions, you have to “rebuild” the board afterwards? Well, the insect card is not banned out of the game, only discarded, so it goes back into the game deck at the end of the session. This means that, if you were to come back to the cave and re-explore it in a future session, the insects may of found their way back! Or you may come across the same empty cave, who knows…

THE GOLD CARDS

Gold cards represent the game’s memory. Gold cards always share a number with a “normal” green card. The rule of gold cards is that you may only draw one IF there are NO other green cards of that number. When you resolve an action that has a permanent effect on the game, it will ask you to ban the normal green card, therefore allowing you to draw the gold card.

Take 017 for example. You find a submarine and attempt to lower it into the water. As you can see from the flavor text, the Golden card represents what happens if you fail the action, at which point it would of asked you to ban the 017 green card from the game. Whatever happens, the effect is now permanent. Either the submersible is sitting peacefully in the water or it’s broken beyond use and you will NEVER be able to use it in this game.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

A lot of dangerous or arduous tasks can be made easier with the right equipment. However, sometimes, having the right tools for the job can produce a whole new effect!

Take this card for example. Here we can see the game is offering to let you attempt a long swim to somewhere. Now with a 5 card draw minimum and 15 successes needed, this is a very difficult task! It goes without saying that a raft would be pretty handy here as it gives you 3 automatic successes when attempting a “navigate” action. However, look closely at the card again. See the little symbol shown in the blue flag above the successful resolution box? That means that if you successfully complete this action whilst using a piece of equipment that also has that symbol, you unlock a completely new card!

The small white square is indeed shown on the Raft card along with “+5”. Therefore, you would take the number indicated by the success (or maybe even failure sometimes) and add 5 to that number so instead of drawing cards number 23, you would draw number 28. The result here would be the same, you would of managed to make it across the water BUT, with a raft, you will be a lot less tires and wet...

These are basic examples included in the the games intro to help them get to grips with how the world around them is not as predictable as they may think. Obviously, Ludovic and Bruno have taken an immense, some would say impish, pleasure in using these mechanics to more devious and interesting ends. What ends exactly? You’ll have to find out for yourself!

Next time we’ll go deeper into how this isn’t just a game of exploration but of survival too!

Ok so far the game looks absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to play it. The only thing I'm a little sketchy on is if you have your own resource pile or if it's shared between all the players. It seems like the game would work better if each player had his own deck.

Ok so far the game looks absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to play it. The only thing I'm a little sketchy on is if you have your own resource pile or if it's shared between all the players. It seems like the game would work better if each player had his own deck.

Pretty positive it is a shared deck where you add or remove cards according to the number of players and which characters they are

Ok so far the game looks absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to play it. The only thing I'm a little sketchy on is if you have your own resource pile or if it's shared between all the players. It seems like the game would work better if each player had his own deck.

It might help to think of it not as a resource deck but mostly as a randomizer deck. Each player has their personal stuff in there, and the fact that someone else might draw your personal good cards is (I think) a motivation to keep the group together. Although, I'm not really sure if that's right; we haven't seen people giving each other cards yet in the previews.

I feel with a shared deck one player could go off on their own and purposely spend actions to kill the group. Having a shared deck also lends to one player making all the desisions for the groups like Pendemic. I don't find Pendemic fun for that reason.

If I remember correctly, the little red stairs means you have to do this action as a group action with all the other players.

Also, the existing tiles on the table are cleared away. One use of the icon would be going down into a dungeon from the surface. The whole party must agree to do so, and the surface tiles are cleared away to make room for the dungeon to unfold. In the case of the sea tile shown, you are presumably leaving the main island and heading somewhere else, so the island tiles are set aside...